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Marius Petipa ( 11 March , 1818 – 14 July , 1910 ) - Unrivaled ballet master of the Tsar 's Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg Russia from about 1862 until around 1905 . He laid the foundations for modern Classical Ballet and the Russia n school of classical dance, as generations of dancers from the late 19th Century in turn took the art of Ballet to the world. He was the creator of over 100 ballets, some of which have survived and have remained cornerstones of the modern Classical Ballet repertoire. LIFE Marius Petipa was born in Marseilles , France on March 11, 1822 . From the start, Marius Petipa had theatre in his blood - his father Jean Petipa was a dancer, choreographer and teacher, and his mother Victorine Grasseu , was an actress. They brought up both Marius and his elder brother, Lucien Petipa , to follow the similar professions. Lucien made a better name for himself as a dancer; among the many roles he created was that of Albert (Albrecht) in Giselle . Marius Petipa began his dance studies at age 7, but at first did not care much for the art form. He received a general education from the Grand College In Brussels . His performing debut came as a child in his father’s production of Pierre Gardel ’s La Dansomanie in 1831 at the Théâtre De La Monnaie in Brussels . The Belgian Revolution followed soon afterwards placing the family in dire straits. Jean Petipa moved the family to Bordeaux in 1834 , and then on to Nantes where Marius became a principal dancer in 1838 . Marius and his father toured North America in 1839 after which Marius studied with Auguste Vestris in Bordeaux . There he appeared as principal dancer in many ballets including, Giselle , La Fille Mal Gardée and La Péri . A noted partner, his partnering of Carlotta Grisi in La Péri was spoken of for generations, particularly one partnered catch that Théophile Gautier deemed would become "... as famous as the Niagara Falls ." In Bordeaux Marius Petipa also choreographed his own works, including La Jolie Bordelaise , La Vendange , L’Intrigue Amoureuse and Le Langage Des Fleurs . Following the failure of the impresario in Bordeaux , Marius was immediately engaged at the King’s Theatre , Madrid . He remained in Spain as a dancer for four years, also studying Spanish Dance '. This influence led him to choreograph other works, including Carmen Et Son Toréro , La Perle De Séville , L’Aventure D’une Fille De Madrid , La Fleur De Grenade , and Départ Pour La Course Des Taureaux . Following a love affair with the Marquis De Chateaubriand , Petipa was obliged to leave Spain . On May 24, 1847 Petipa went to the Tsar 's Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg at the suggestion of ballet master Titus . He was offered a contract there for one year as a principal dancer, replacing another Frenchman, Emile Gredlu , who was leaving. Petipa was alarmed to discover that the company had just begun a four-month holiday, but his concern turned to delight on learning that he would receive full pay for the period. For his debut he assisted dancer Frédéric in mounting Joseph Mazillier ’s ballet Paquita for the Imperial Ballet , and he enjoyed much success in the largely mimed role of Lucien d’Hervilly. By February 1848 , Petipa and his father had produced Mazilier ’s Satanilla (or Love And Hell ) for the Imperial stage. Since Marie Taglioni ’s departure from the Imperial Ballet in 1842 the ballet of St. Petersburg had slumped into insignificance. At the end of Petipa’s first season in with the Imperial Ballet the critic Raphael Zotov wrote, "Our lovely ballet company was reborn with the production of Paquita , and the production of Satanilla and its superlative performance placed the company again at its former level of glory and universal affection." The first ballet he choreographed in Russia was The Swiss Milkmaid AKA Leda , to the music of Adalbert Gyrowetz in 1849 . The ability to mount revivals and make dances was the predictable outcome of Petipa’s rigorous apprenticeship, evidenced by his composing ballets as a teenager in Nantes and later in Bordeaux and Spain . The next step - allowing skill to ripen into creativity - took many years. Petipa’s superiors could not have sensed the depth of his flair for ballet production (given his lack of celebrity at the time, that likely would have made no difference) when Jules Perrot was called to St. Petersburg in 1848 at the behest of Fanny Elssler to become resident ballet master. The immediate effect of Perrot , a choreographer of international stature, on Petipa’s career was to reaffirm his duties as a dancer. From performing the ballets of Perrot and Arthur Saint-Léon , Petipa did learn the value of intensely dramatic mimed scenes and the persuasive intervention of fantastic elements into everyday settings. He was also chosen by Perrot to assist him in producing new ballets. This assimilated knowledge enriched Petipa’s native talents as a superior mime, an expert character dancer, and behind the scenes, a politically astute courtier observing the state of ballet affairs. By the late 1850s Petipa must have known that the days of Jules Perrot were numbered in St. Petersburg . He returned modestly to choreography with A Regency Marriage in 1858 , The Parisian Market in 1859 and The Blue Dahlia in 1860 , ballets all set to the scores of Cesare Pugni '. These ballets were vehicles for the Ballerina Maria Sergeyevna Surovshchikova , whom Petipa married in 1854 . They had three children, one of whom became a well-known dancer, Marie Petipa , a famous dancer in her own right. For Petipa, who turned 40 in 1858 , composition was a logical alternative to dancing. Petipa’s breakthrough as a choreographer came in 1862 with the creation of The Pharoah's Daughter to the music of Cesare Pugni , based on the novel by Théophile Gautier Le Roman De La Momie . On the strength of the success of this ballet, Petipa was appointed ballet master. He was successful in unseating Saint-Léon by championing Maria Sergeyevna Surovshchikova in a public rivalry against Marfa Muravieva whom Saint-Léon favored. Petipa was promoted to take charge of the Imperial Ballet in 1869, the year that also saw the premiere of his ballet Don Quixote set to the music of Léon Minkus . Petipa established himself with his "Grand Ballet Spectacles", of which Le Roi Candaules in 1868 and La Bayadère in 1877 to the music of Léon Minkus were of great success. Hardly a new idea - ballets set in exotic locales had been around since the French Baroque period - but Petipa linked the ballets to current events or fashions. La Bayadère came in the wake of a widely reported journey of the Prince Of Wales to India . Petipa’s "Grand Ballet Spectacles" called for massive forces, luxurious productions and predictable choreographic components. In constructing the acts of a ballet he selected from a variety of elements: massed scenes, character dances which provided a sense of local color, classical dances (which normally called for a suspension of the narrative) and dramatic encounters between the principal characters, set either as pure mime or in the context of the Grand Pas D’Action , as a mixture of mime and dancing. Petipa was meticulous in his preparations, doing exhaustive research and preparing minute plans for painters and composers. He always considered, however, that choreography should take precedence over all else. He would come to rehearsals with ideas already prepared and teach the dancers what he had devised. "Without even looking at us he merely showed us the movements and gestures with words spoken in indescribable Russian ," wrote Mathilde Kschessinska , Prima Ballerina Assoluta of the Imperial Ballet during the late 19th Century and early 20th Century . Despite his many years in Russia , Petipa spoke little of the language and the dancers had to get used to his peculiar idioms. "You on me, me on you; you on mine, me on your," meant that you had to move from one corner ("you") to where he was ("me"). To make his meaning clearer he tapped his chest every time he said "me." By this means Petipa taught some of the most widely performed and enduring masterpieces ballet has yet known. Quaintly, this short stepped but rapid tapping gait has found its way in the books of medicine as "''marche á Petipas''" found in patients of a brain disorder. Petipa married a second time in 1882 to a Ballerina of the Bolshoi Theatre , Lubova Leonidovna . Petipa's talent reached its pinnacle throughout the 1880s, 1890s, and the early 1910s - a time when he created his most enduring ballets as well as many definitive revivals of already exsisting ballets. Choreographically his revisions of the ballets of other choreographers would go on to become the foundations of future stagings throughout the world and mostly in Russia . Among these revivals were Giselle in 1884 , La Fille Mal Gardee in 1885 (given under the title Vain Percautions ), Coppelia in 1885 , The Little Humpbacked Horse (or Tsar Maiden ) in 1895, La Esmeralda , and Le Corsaire in 1899 . His own ballets saw their final revisions by Petipa during this time as well, such as The Pharoah's Daughter in 1898 , and La Bayadere in 1900 . The 1890s saw Petipa create the Tchaikovsky scored masterpieces, among others - The Sleeping Beauty in 1890 (widely agreed to be Petipa's greatest work), The Nutcracker in 1892 (for which Petipa's assistant Lev Ivanov created the dances for based in his notes), the important revival of Swan Lake in 1895 , again with Lev Ivanov , and Riccardo Drigo 's The Awakening Of Flora in 1894 . Other works followed, including the splendid 1898 Raymonda , The Seasons , and Ruses D'Amour (AKA Lady Soubrette , The Trial Of Damis , or The Pranks Of Love ) in 1900, all set to the music of Alexander Glazunov , and that same year, he created the ballet Les Millions D'Arlequin (AKA Harlequin's Millions , or Harlequinade ). Inevitably with such a long career (over 60 years in the service of the Imperial Ballet ), the changing fashion in ballet turned against Petipa. Although officially titled ‘ballet master for life’, his less than friendly relations with the new Imperial Theatre director Vladimir Telyakovsky , the poor success of his 1903 ballet The Magic Mirror , and the abrupt cancellation of his last work The Romance Of The Rosebud And The Butterfly to the music of Riccardo Drigo in 1904 brought about his retirement. He retired with full ballet master’s pay. In 1906 Petipa’s memoirs were published. Due to ill health Petipa moved to Gurzuf in southern Russia in 1907 where he lived until dying on July 14, 1910 . THE ORIGINAL WORKS AND REVIVALS OF MARIUS PETIPA FOR THE IMPERIAL BALLET OF RUSSIA
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